Nicely done. My external screw in the rear of the Bolt was T8, the rest were T10 for me. Also, I decided to replace the plastic antenna wire standoffs over the hard drive with two pieces of double-sided adhesive foam tape. These case removals are like a puzzle, and I have no patience for puzzles! Thanks for putting this together and sharing with the world!
Thanks for the reminder video. Two years ago I updated my 500GB to a 4TB Seagate BarraCuda 2an17v-566, which has apparently just died. Luckily I still had my original Hard drive and was able to pop it back in. No recordings, but I'm not too worried about that, just glad it's no longer a brick!
Thru my Research, you must use a CMR HDD for Video whether it's Tivo, Servelence, all DVR's it must be CMR to take the long time it runs 24/7 and will last much longer than SMR. Same as a NAS, use CMR or you're changing out HDD's much more often. Some of the newer NAS you buy CMR or IT WON"T WORK. Like my mommy said, A FOOL WITH THEIR MONEY ARE SOON PARTED. Due your research or enjoy emptying out your bank account.
The video was useful. I found a plastic knife (like what you might get for takeout in a deli) very useful for prying off the covers without marring them.
Thanks for this great video. I did run into one teeny snag. One of the screws holding the hard drive frame to the original 500GB drive was a T10. This screw was the one next to the 4 pin power connector. I originally thought I stripped it - but the T8 bit I was using was spinning in the screw. Stepping up to a T10 addressed that particular screw nicely. It's possible that manufacturing is intermingling screw sizes - thus the original T10 recommendation. Other than that - it was a breeze!
Good question...I'm having Weaknees do mine but I suspect there may be a way to do it myself instead of paying them $150. I don't think you can just pop a drive in and it works.
Thanks for a great instructional video. Purchased the Toshiba 3TB HD. Didn't have a T10 security bit of screwdriver so I bought one from a nearby big box store. Problem was that the screws were T8 and not T10. Big Box store didn't have T8, so I had to find a tool store about 30 minutes away that had one. Took the Tivo Bolt with me to make sure this time. T8 screwdriver worked on all screws. Maybe Tivo made some manufacturing changes. Installation from that point on was as shown in the video. The tip from one of the other reviews regarding using a plastic deli knife to help open the box was great and saved a lot of time. My advice to anyone doing this is if you don't already own a set of security screw bits or screwdrivers, take the Tivo box to the store with you to be sure you buy the correct size.
When I get around to replacing the drive, I'll leave the cover off for heat dissipation. In fact, I'll put a fan on both the drive and CPU heat sink, like my Roamio currently.
Those hard drives are now discontinued. I'm also seeing some reviews on Amazon that mention their drives failed after less than a year. Are there any alternative drives?
Thank you for this video. It definitely gives me confidence to try this procedure. I have a question though, is your Bolt still working with the Toshiba drive? Amazon seems to have several people complaining that after 6 or 7 months of use the drive started failing in their TiVo Bolt.
To avoid the issue that was shown of how to put the hard drive bracket on your new drive, i would make the suggestion that you place your new drive next to your old drive making sure that the plug for the cable on both drives are facing you. This way all you have to do is unscrew the bracket, pick it up, move it directly to the new drive and screw it on. No flipping it around.
Before anyone proceeds with changing out your drive, as I did, please give careful consideration to the hard drive you select. The wrong drive will cause your beloved TiVo Bolt to experience errors. I spent an entire week buying part after part, so please learn from my trial and error. Following the instructions in this helpful video, I installed a 2TB Samsung drive (model: ST2000LM003) in my TiVo Bolt. (The Toshiba drive that Intellibeam used was not readily available at the time.) Within the first few hours, the TiVo for the first time reported multiple errors while watching live (buffered) TV. The TiVo reported that "Live TV was not available." This error required me to hit the TiVo button to go back to the menu and select Live TV again. Yes, very annoying! I surmised that this error was happening because the Samsung drive is not an AV drive, and therefore it was unable to support the demand necessary for error-free TiVo watching. The Samsung drive also only had 8 MB of cache (compared to the 16 MB of cache in the drive that came with the Bolt). Conclusion: An AV drive may help to avoid these problems. In the end, I decided to go with the "Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX" drive, available on Amazon. This is a 3.5 inch drive so it must reside in an external enclosure or docking station. I could not find a reasonably priced enclosure that wasn't noisy, so the docking station was the best solution for me. This configuration requires you to run a SATA cable from the inside of the TiVo box to the outside, which is not ideal, but at least you won't have errors. (My TiVo is hidden from plain view in my living room, so these aesthetics were not critical to me.) Once 2.5 inch 3 TB drives are available in AV, perhaps I will go with that, but until then, I think the 3.5 inch external AV 3 TB drive is a reliable and cost-effective way to go. (Perhaps Intellibeam could tell us how the performance has been from his Toshiba 3.0TB MQ03ABB300 drive? Any errors such as the one I had with the Samsung drive?) Here is the shopping list of the items I needed to pull off error-free viewing. As of the time of my writing this comment, all of these items are available on Amazon Prime. (1) Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX (2) Anker® USB 3.0 & eSATA to SATA External Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [4TB Support] (3) Ably SATA Female to ESATA Male Adapter for HDD Hard Drive (4) Cable Matters 90 Degree Right-Angle 6.0 Gbps SATA III Cable - 18 Inches The angled SATA cable is essential, because the TiVo's casing will NOT be able to close if you don't use an angled SATA cable. (You could use a left angle SATA cable, but the right angle is the better choice because it allows the cable to point directly to the back side of the TiVo casing.) If you don't re-screw in the screw that goes next to the coaxial cable in the back, there is enough "give" to allow the SATA cable to exit the casing in a way that is not obnoxious. I taped a half inch of electrical tape just over the metal casing on the back of the TiVo so that SATA cable was not resting directly onto metal. It's snug, but I don't think it will get cut.
I just installed the same drive that you had issues with, but I did not see your comment. hopefully you just had a bad drive, I will update if I get any errors with my Samsung/Seagate 2TB drive. I was not able to find a 3TB drive that was 2.5" so I was bummed to have to get only the 2TB size. #firstworldproblems. I only installed it last night so time will tell. Also someone mentioned different sized bolts were used...I had a mix of T8 and T10. The 8's were mainly on the case and the 10's were on the HD.
+Jago94 Well 2 days have gone by and it has been preforming great. The only issue I have had is the internet dropping out, seems to lose it connection to my router and only a reboot of the system (unplug and plug back in) can reset the connection. I don't think the HD has anything to do with it. I suspect my router to be the issue...its an old Lynksys wireless G router from 2003 haha. I will update if things change.
Crap, I just ordered that drive. Although, there are now two versions of that drive and I got the newer version according to Amazon. I hope I don't have any issues.
My Hard drive crashed on my tivo bolt and I'm using this video as a guide to replace with a new hard drive. My only question is in regards of formatting. Do i need to format the hard drive before i put it in the tivo? If so what format or any special application to use to format? Or does tivo bolt will format the new hard drive?
The case is actual quite durable but yeah, the days of the heavy metal Tivo cases is gone. Honestly there's really not too much to them inside so it was overkill.
This particular Tivo installs everything needed back to the new drive automatically. It's a very short process and only takes a moment from powering it back on.
Our new Bolt took a lightning hit (only 3 months old). Any idea if I can just swap the drive into a new Bolt and expect to keep all my content and schedules etc? Assuming the drive works, of course. Networking is dead so I can't do a transfer from old to new...
Not a TiVo expert, but as an IT dude, if it took a power surge like that, the drive is the least of your issues. No networking tells me the main board is fried. Sorry to bring you bad news but the whole thing is shot. Even if the drive survived IDK if you can move the recordings to a new TiVo. $20 surge protector would have saved you $200 to replace it. Live and learn. Cheers.
It was on a surge protector, but lightning strikes are practically a hobby around here. The drive was fine but it turns out the recordings are somehow keyed to the individual Tivo. I swapped the drive but the new box treated it just like an unformatted drive and wiped everything.
Mine was a T8. Also, forget any "spungers" and the like. Old credit cards are better, and you can cut them up to fit better if you like - though I found no need to.
T10 bit was too large. To avoid this stupid mistake, I'd get a set, it's cheap enough to get 6-8 that will run from T4-T10 instead of just buying the one size. (update - I found a driver kit. One day I need to organize all my stuff) 478 HD hours! And I would not have been comfortable doing it without this great video. All the screws were T9, and it was just a matter of patience, and pausing to see the next step. Thanks!!
Just got mine delivered yesterday so maybe newest configuration. All T-8 screws til I got to the hard drive bracket, then T-10. Antenna wire was already routed under the drive so a little easier.
Does this damage the "Continuous Coverage Warrenty" that TIVO offers with All bolths who have an active month/year subscription? ( per their FAQ on Tivo.com )
Biggest reassembly problem I had was the red sata cable. It wedged under a rib on the case, and kept the case and HDD cover from aligning. Rather than disassemble again I worked the cable free with the torx drive head, scooting cable a little until the case went together. It took several tries. HDD was the samsung 4gb.
How's the drive been working for you up to this point, I just received the 500GB bolt and I'm considering upgrading the HDD, its $170 off eBay for the drive you have listed. Is this still the best option to upgrade it with or are there better ones out now? Thanks for the awesome tutorial
Jonathan Logue i upgraded mine with 4tb. I bought the seagate expansion external 2.5 drive and opened it. Need to use software (MFSReformatter) to read it as 4tb. The hard drive i got it for $99 at Costco.
I got the new drive in, but as I was pluggingg the drive in, the Wireless cable that goes across the HD, came loose where it plugs in. I tried to plug it in, but not sure why it doesn't just snap in. Don't want to screw it up. I would think it would plug back in, but maybe it has to be at a certain direction to go down... not sure...bummer stopped in my tracks
Great video TY! Love that you include spec on fastener TS-10 but just to be clear are all fasteners the same size as the unique one on the mid back? They use a 2.5" HDD and not SSD why not swap for SSD? 10 year life expectancy for SSD where most HDDs are 2yrs the best HDD is 5yrs
+Andrew Allen The software is built into the flash memory on the Tivo itself. All you have to do it turn it on and it auto configures the new drive as long as it's
+Intellibeam To follow up on this question, I've been running my Bolt for a month already with the original drive. How would I transfer all the shows I've already recorded over to the new drive? And, will the all the settings, such as all the season-pass recordings I've setup be retained? Thanks for the info.
+Rick Mcknight You'd have to copy them over to a pc or another Tivo first. Season Pass/One Pass settings are all stored online and can be manged there.
+Intellibeam That's what editing is for. It just looks really lazy putting a big power driver on something as small and could strip the fastener. I can understand if you're taking these apart by the 100s as a repair business but for instructional videos I think its a poor choice.
+Shao Zhang If you like editing videos for free, let me know. I didn't strip any screws in the video, that's because I know what I'm doing. I even mention to use a normal one if you don't know what you are doing.
+Shao Zhang Geez. Lighten up, dude - he's helping people out by doing the video! If you're too stupid that you strip things using a power driver, maybe upgrading the HD is beyond your capabilities.
@@Intellibeam I'm looking at a Seagate 3TB 5400RPM 128MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Notebook HD ( ST3000LM016), would you recommend this HDD? Does anyone have experience with this HDD?
Does anyone know of any tutorials or companies that might check the Tuners that no longer pickups more than 6 low end channels after a power surge. My Bolt is a boat anchor unless there is a way to fix this. TiVo customer support seems to be overseas now so they are about useless.
...just got a Bolt earlier in the week and hooked up today. It had little a couple of white tabs fall out of it - seeing your disassembly makes we think they are broken tabs from the small cover over the hard drive. I ordered directly from TiVo and the shipping box looked fine - guess time will tell. Great vid on swapping the drive - thanks...
So if I have a 2TB drive that already has partitions/data, can I just wipe it clean on my WindowsPC, reformat it as blank drive, no partitions and then swap it in? Trying to save myself from opening the unit more than once!
I upgraded my Tivo Bolt 500GB to Toshiba 3.0TB MQ03ABB300 Hard Disk Drive as you suggested. Rebooting issues after 2 months of operation, unit crashed and now "4 flashing lights" at startup, any suggestions?
Intellibeam - Great video. I have a question for you. Did you have to copy all the files from the old hard drive to the new hard drive first ??? Or can you stick a bare formatted disk drive in there and it will download all the necessary files to it once you boot up the system ???? Thanks.
Is there software that needs to be installed on the HD prior to using it (like the other TiVo models), or is the HD for storage only? Will the new HD be "plug & play", or do you have to format it first?
FYI is used the SAMSUNG Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive worked like a charm and very quiet as well....
Is it still working? My 3T just died and i have lifetime subscription they want to charge me 499.99 for service fee life time. What a joke and 199.99 for the edge box if all i need to do is replace HD then my lifetime subscription will still work ? Thanks
Since SSD prices have tanked, it might be worth it nowadays. I don't think you'll notice any real speed increase since the OS isn't stored on the drive though.
Um, isn't that supposed to be >3TB and you HAVE to do prep? 3TB or less and you don't need to prep? Your comment above says ">" (greater) 3TB. BTW, thanks for video. Much more involved than Roamio.
I'm sorry for being critical. I've been building computers since 1985 (for myself) all I'm saying is if (which I'm not) would remind people that hard drives are u fragile . They do damage easily, I guess I was kind of taen back, also the reason I'm here at your video is I just. Bought a Bolt. I have 4 different Tivo boxes up to my last myTivo Romeio pro, 3 weeks ago a mild thunderstorm took that. Tivo out. Tivo.s especially their HDMI area. Hate static . Except the last one all the others had. The HDMI jack ruined by static electricity, I'd mention in your electronics videos. It's important to ground yourself . Again sorry . Just me. Thanks for the video. I'm hoping to try a 4tb drive, gonna as cut my cable card go Ota
Correct, sort of. Plug in the drive and boot up to the setup screen. Tivo will automatically format. If it's larger than either 2TB or 3TB (I'm not sure which) then it will be formatted to 2TB (or 3TB), you then remove from the Tivo, connect to computer, and run mfsr to format to the full size (up to 8TB I believe). I just did it on my Bolt running the latest release (21.7 I believe), worked fine.
Did not know you could replace the existing HD with an off the shelf HD. Is this something new? I have the older box and getting pixelation on my video recording thinking my drive is dying.
It's also possible that your power supply is dying. I started getting pixelation on my TiVO Series 3 HD when its power supply was dying. A good number of TiVOs were made during the so-called "Capacitor plague" (google it) and you can refurb the power supply by replacing the electrolytic capacitors, if you're handy with a soldering iron.
Thank you billd66 you leave me with more options. After removing the drive and replacing it with an identical drive the pixelation continues. Time to take a look at those Caps and the google search response. Again thank you.
+LoSo ʎɐʍ I have heard of people using this one: Samsung Seagate 2TB Laptop HDD SATA III 2.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive 9.5MM (ST2000LM003) But, do your own checking.
+Matthew Kent With a >3TB drive, you do not need to format or do anything special. You just pop it in and turn on the Tivo. 4TB and above needs some Linux love.
Nicely done. My external screw in the rear of the Bolt was T8, the rest were T10 for me. Also, I decided to replace the plastic antenna wire standoffs over the hard drive with two pieces of double-sided adhesive foam tape. These case removals are like a puzzle, and I have no patience for puzzles! Thanks for putting this together and sharing with the world!
You are most welcome.
Thank you for the tip about putting the cover back on by the ports, your method works perfectly.
Many thanks for this. The video empowered me to avoid Tivo's ridiculous $150 "exchange fee"!
Thanks for the info, all 4 lights on my Bolt+.. Got me going again fast!
helped me do the upgrade in 10 minutes. nice job!
Thank you, this went great when my hard drive died on my TiVo Bolt
Thanks for the reminder video. Two years ago I updated my 500GB to a 4TB Seagate BarraCuda 2an17v-566, which has apparently just died. Luckily I still had my original Hard drive and was able to pop it back in. No recordings, but I'm not too worried about that, just glad it's no longer a brick!
Half of the R&D budget must've gone into the unnecessarily complex case design.
LMFAO! Also too small, should have been full component size, for proper ventilation!
@@scottskura3706 Agreed, but those days are gone. The Tivo Edge has a better case though.
Thru my Research, you must use a CMR HDD for Video whether it's Tivo, Servelence, all DVR's it must be CMR to take the long time it runs 24/7 and will last much longer than SMR. Same as a NAS, use CMR or you're changing out HDD's much more often. Some of the newer NAS you buy CMR or IT WON"T WORK. Like my mommy said, A FOOL WITH THEIR MONEY ARE SOON PARTED. Due your research or enjoy emptying out your bank account.
The video was useful. I found a plastic knife (like what you might get for takeout in a deli) very useful for prying off the covers without marring them.
Did you have to do anything like reformat the hard drive? How does it keep your lifetime subscription on the TiVo!
Thanks for this great video. I did run into one teeny snag. One of the screws holding the hard drive frame to the original 500GB drive was a T10. This screw was the one next to the 4 pin power connector. I originally thought I stripped it - but the T8 bit I was using was spinning in the screw. Stepping up to a T10 addressed that particular screw nicely. It's possible that manufacturing is intermingling screw sizes - thus the original T10 recommendation. Other than that - it was a breeze!
How does the operating system get put on it?
Good question...I'm having Weaknees do mine but I suspect there may be a way to do it myself instead of paying them $150. I don't think you can just pop a drive in and it works.
Thanks for a great instructional video. Purchased the Toshiba 3TB HD. Didn't have a T10 security bit of screwdriver so I bought one from a nearby big box store. Problem was that the screws were T8 and not T10. Big Box store didn't have T8, so I had to find a tool store about 30 minutes away that had one. Took the Tivo Bolt with me to make sure this time. T8 screwdriver worked on all screws. Maybe Tivo made some manufacturing changes. Installation from that point on was as shown in the video. The tip from one of the other reviews regarding using a plastic deli knife to help open the box was great and saved a lot of time.
My advice to anyone doing this is if you don't already own a set of security screw bits or screwdrivers, take the Tivo box to the store with you to be sure you buy the correct size.
Do you need to format the drive, or load the OS?
When I get around to replacing the drive, I'll leave the cover off for heat dissipation. In fact, I'll put a fan on both the drive and CPU heat sink, like my Roamio currently.
+Simon Byrd So far so good with mine. It's in a partially covered cabinet as well. The cooler the better though.
Does the new HDD automatically format from the unit? Or is there a special file that has to be downloaded and installed before installation.
Those hard drives are now discontinued. I'm also seeing some reviews on Amazon that mention their drives failed after less than a year. Are there any alternative drives?
Not sure. I sold the Tivo that still had that drive working since the video.
My HD failed sometime early this morning. Thank you for the how-to! 👍
Glad we could help!
Thank you for this video. It definitely gives me confidence to try this procedure. I have a question though, is your Bolt still working with the Toshiba drive? Amazon seems to have several people complaining that after 6 or 7 months of use the drive started failing in their TiVo Bolt.
Mine has been fine since day 1 of this video =)
Was this disk preformated?
To avoid the issue that was shown of how to put the hard drive bracket on your new drive, i would make the suggestion that you place your new drive next to your old drive making sure that the plug for the cable on both drives are facing you. This way all you have to do is unscrew the bracket, pick it up, move it directly to the new drive and screw it on. No flipping it around.
Grreat video with very clear instructions. The hard drivie failed on our Bolt Tivo has a lifetime subscription so this save us about $900!!
Before anyone proceeds with changing out your drive, as I did, please give careful consideration to the hard drive you select. The wrong drive will cause your beloved TiVo Bolt to experience errors. I spent an entire week buying part after part, so please learn from my trial and error. Following the instructions in this helpful video, I installed a 2TB Samsung drive (model: ST2000LM003) in my TiVo Bolt. (The Toshiba drive that Intellibeam used was not readily available at the time.) Within the first few hours, the TiVo for the first time reported multiple errors while watching live (buffered) TV. The TiVo reported that "Live TV was not available." This error required me to hit the TiVo button to go back to the menu and select Live TV again. Yes, very annoying! I surmised that this error was happening because the Samsung drive is not an AV drive, and therefore it was unable to support the demand necessary for error-free TiVo watching. The Samsung drive also only had 8 MB of cache (compared to the 16 MB of cache in the drive that came with the Bolt).
Conclusion: An AV drive may help to avoid these problems. In the end, I decided to go with the "Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX" drive, available on Amazon. This is a 3.5 inch drive so it must reside in an external enclosure or docking station. I could not find a reasonably priced enclosure that wasn't noisy, so the docking station was the best solution for me. This configuration requires you to run a SATA cable from the inside of the TiVo box to the outside, which is not ideal, but at least you won't have errors. (My TiVo is hidden from plain view in my living room, so these aesthetics were not critical to me.) Once 2.5 inch 3 TB drives are available in AV, perhaps I will go with that, but until then, I think the 3.5 inch external AV 3 TB drive is a reliable and cost-effective way to go.
(Perhaps Intellibeam could tell us how the performance has been from his Toshiba 3.0TB MQ03ABB300 drive? Any errors such as the one I had with the Samsung drive?)
Here is the shopping list of the items I needed to pull off error-free viewing. As of the time of my writing this comment, all of these items are available on Amazon Prime.
(1) Western Digital 3 TB WD AV-GP SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive WD30EURX
(2) Anker® USB 3.0 & eSATA to SATA External Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [4TB Support]
(3) Ably SATA Female to ESATA Male Adapter for HDD Hard Drive
(4) Cable Matters 90 Degree Right-Angle 6.0 Gbps SATA III Cable - 18 Inches
The angled SATA cable is essential, because the TiVo's casing will NOT be able to close if you don't use an angled SATA cable. (You could use a left angle SATA cable, but the right angle is the better choice because it allows the cable to point directly to the back side of the TiVo casing.) If you don't re-screw in the screw that goes next to the coaxial cable in the back, there is enough "give" to allow the SATA cable to exit the casing in a way that is not obnoxious. I taped a half inch of electrical tape just over the metal casing on the back of the TiVo so that SATA cable was not resting directly onto metal. It's snug, but I don't think it will get cut.
+dcmax1 The drive in this video has been rock solid since the day it was installed. As you can also see, no other accessories or cables were needed.
I just installed the same drive that you had issues with, but I did not see your comment. hopefully you just had a bad drive, I will update if I get any errors with my Samsung/Seagate 2TB drive.
I was not able to find a 3TB drive that was 2.5" so I was bummed to have to get only the 2TB size. #firstworldproblems. I only installed it last night so time will tell. Also someone mentioned different sized bolts were used...I had a mix of T8 and T10. The 8's were mainly on the case and the 10's were on the HD.
+Jago94
Well 2 days have gone by and it has been preforming great. The only issue I have had is the internet dropping out, seems to lose it connection to my router and only a reboot of the system (unplug and plug back in) can reset the connection. I don't think the HD has anything to do with it. I suspect my router to be the issue...its an old Lynksys wireless G router from 2003 haha.
I will update if things change.
+dcmax1 Because AV drives are designed to skip over errors instead of hang on them trying to process them.
Crap, I just ordered that drive. Although, there are now two versions of that drive and I got the newer version according to Amazon. I hope I don't have any issues.
this guy made quite a few mistakes, 1 He made getting the hard drive mounts on confusing. As he did this incorrectly.
I ended up snapping all the fixed tabs on the short cover, so my Tivo isn't as pretty as yours. The video? Really well done. TY.
Worked for me. Bought the same hdd that you used. Now I have 457 hours of HD recording. What should I do with the old hdd?
I would save it in case you need any warranty work.
Thanks for the video. You just saved me $200. God bless you.
My Hard drive crashed on my tivo bolt and I'm using this video as a guide to replace with a new hard drive. My only question is in regards of formatting. Do i need to format the hard drive before i put it in the tivo? If so what format or any special application to use to format? Or does tivo bolt will format the new hard drive?
Ok, got the new hard drive but it is stuck at "Starting up" ?..any suggestion
Great Intellibeam video for simple replacement of TiVo Series 6 BOLT HARD DRIVE.
BOLT seems a lot more flimsy plastic than the larger Roamios.
Thanks
The case is actual quite durable but yeah, the days of the heavy metal Tivo cases is gone. Honestly there's really not too much to them inside so it was overkill.
is there a video that describes the steps to power up and set up the Tivo after replacing the drive?
This particular Tivo installs everything needed back to the new drive automatically. It's a very short process and only takes a moment from powering it back on.
Intellibeam: I want to thank you for the video. I successfully replaced my 500GB with the Toshiba 3TB. Thanks!!
Glad we could help!
Our new Bolt took a lightning hit (only 3 months old). Any idea if I can just swap the drive into a new Bolt and expect to keep all my content and schedules etc? Assuming the drive works, of course. Networking is dead so I can't do a transfer from old to new...
Not a TiVo expert, but as an IT dude, if it took a power surge like that, the drive is the least of your issues. No networking tells me the main board is fried. Sorry to bring you bad news but the whole thing is shot. Even if the drive survived IDK if you can move the recordings to a new TiVo.
$20 surge protector would have saved you $200 to replace it. Live and learn. Cheers.
It was on a surge protector, but lightning strikes are practically a hobby around here. The drive was fine but it turns out the recordings are somehow keyed to the individual Tivo. I swapped the drive but the new box treated it just like an unformatted drive and wiped everything.
Understood RE the surge protector. Which one were you using, so I can get something beefier and up my survival odds?
Mine was a T8.
Also, forget any "spungers" and the like. Old credit cards are better, and you can cut them up to fit better if you like - though I found no need to.
IMPORTANT: Some Tivo Bolts use a T9 for the back screw and the ones underneath. That was the case with mine.
thank you sir! just upgraded mine... 2TB
Dude, epic video. Thank you! Took me about 10 mins and hoping it is fixed!
T10 bit was too large. To avoid this stupid mistake, I'd get a set, it's cheap enough to get 6-8 that will run from T4-T10 instead of just buying the one size.
(update - I found a driver kit. One day I need to organize all my stuff)
478 HD hours! And I would not have been comfortable doing it without this great video. All the screws were T9, and it was just a matter of patience, and pausing to see the next step. Thanks!!
Just got mine delivered yesterday so maybe newest configuration. All T-8 screws til I got to the hard drive bracket, then T-10. Antenna wire was already routed under the drive so a little easier.
Does this damage the "Continuous Coverage Warrenty" that TIVO offers with All bolths who have an active month/year subscription? ( per their FAQ on Tivo.com )
Does this work with the TiVO Bolt vox?
Biggest reassembly problem I had was the red sata cable. It wedged under a rib on the case, and kept the case and HDD cover from aligning. Rather than disassemble again I worked the cable free with the torx drive head, scooting cable a little until the case went together. It took several tries. HDD was the samsung 4gb.
How's the drive been working for you up to this point, I just received the 500GB bolt and I'm considering upgrading the HDD, its $170 off eBay for the drive you have listed. Is this still the best option to upgrade it with or are there better ones out now? Thanks for the awesome tutorial
+Jonathan Logue It's been rock solid since day 1.
Thanks for the update; I'll be ordered the drive tonight and with you tutorial this'll be a piece of cake.
Jonathan Logue i upgraded mine with 4tb. I bought the seagate expansion external 2.5 drive and opened it. Need to use software (MFSReformatter) to read it as 4tb. The hard drive i got it for $99 at Costco.
I got the new drive in, but as I was pluggingg the drive in, the Wireless cable that goes across the HD, came loose where it plugs in. I tried to plug it in, but not sure why it doesn't just snap in. Don't want to screw it up. I would think it would plug back in, but maybe it has to be at a certain direction to go down... not sure...bummer stopped in my tracks
Great video TY! Love that you include spec on fastener TS-10 but just to be clear are all fasteners the same size as the unique one on the mid back? They use a 2.5" HDD and not SSD why not swap for SSD? 10 year life expectancy for SSD where most HDDs are 2yrs the best HDD is 5yrs
how does the software work after the upgrade? do you have to reinstall somehow?
+Andrew Allen The software is built into the flash memory on the Tivo itself. All you have to do it turn it on and it auto configures the new drive as long as it's
Intellibeam thanks!
+Intellibeam To follow up on this question, I've been running my Bolt for a month already with the original drive. How would I transfer all the shows I've already recorded over to the new drive? And, will the all the settings, such as all the season-pass recordings I've setup be retained? Thanks for the info.
+Rick Mcknight You'd have to copy them over to a pc or another Tivo first. Season Pass/One Pass settings are all stored online and can be manged there.
You really don't need a power driver to work on something like the Bolt.
+Shao Zhang I'm all set with spending extra minutes on video unscrewing/screwing a dozen screws. I'm sure nobody wants to see it either.
+Intellibeam That's what editing is for. It just looks really lazy putting a big power driver on something as small and could strip the fastener. I can understand if you're taking these apart by the 100s as a repair business but for instructional videos I think its a poor choice.
+Shao Zhang If you like editing videos for free, let me know. I didn't strip any screws in the video, that's because I know what I'm doing. I even mention to use a normal one if you don't know what you are doing.
+Shao Zhang Geez. Lighten up, dude - he's helping people out by doing the video! If you're too stupid that you strip things using a power driver, maybe upgrading the HD is beyond your capabilities.
@@Intellibeam I'm looking at a Seagate 3TB 5400RPM 128MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Notebook HD ( ST3000LM016), would you recommend this HDD? Does anyone have experience with this HDD?
Does anyone know of any tutorials or companies that might check the Tuners that no longer pickups more than 6 low end channels after a power surge. My Bolt is a boat anchor unless there is a way to fix this. TiVo customer support seems to be overseas now so they are about useless.
...just got a Bolt earlier in the week and hooked up today. It had little a couple of white tabs fall out of it - seeing your disassembly makes we think they are broken tabs from the small cover over the hard drive. I ordered directly from TiVo and the shipping box looked fine - guess time will tell. Great vid on swapping the drive - thanks...
Good video, but just skip putting the white clips back on the new HD, they are not really needed.
cool, your instructions worked. went from 75HD hours to 432HD hours.
So if I have a 2TB drive that already has partitions/data, can I just wipe it clean on my WindowsPC, reformat it as blank drive, no partitions and then swap it in? Trying to save myself from opening the unit more than once!
Yes
I upgraded my Tivo Bolt 500GB to Toshiba 3.0TB MQ03ABB300 Hard Disk Drive as you suggested.
Rebooting issues after 2 months of operation, unit crashed and now "4 flashing lights" at startup, any suggestions?
Intellibeam - Great video. I have a question for you. Did you have to copy all the files from the old hard drive to the new hard drive first ??? Or can you stick a bare formatted disk drive in there and it will download all the necessary files to it once you boot up the system ???? Thanks.
Bare drive is all you need.
Does it just recognize the drive and install the OS or is the OS on the the board?
It auto recognizes the drive and installs everything to it.
This looks like it's no where near as easy to change the drive as the Roamio.
Can you install a 256GB driver into a op-1?
So because Tivo felt the ridiculous need to be different with the Bolt's shape, this box is more of a pain to open than previous gens.
+sdnative I like the design, I hate that it's white though...
Is there software that needs to be installed on the HD prior to using it (like the other TiVo models), or is the HD for storage only? Will the new HD be "plug & play", or do you have to format it first?
+David Pavlakovich >3TB, you don't have to do anything. The software is on the Tivo.
I think you mean "
do these drives need formatting?
No.
Do we activate Tivo first then do the hard disk replacement, or can we swap out the drive right away then activate?
You can do the drive at any point you like.
FYI is used the SAMSUNG Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive worked like a charm and very quiet as well....
Lu(k
Is it still working? My 3T just died and i have lifetime subscription they want to charge me 499.99 for service fee life time. What a joke and 199.99 for the edge box if all i need to do is replace HD then my lifetime subscription will still work ? Thanks
@@tylerguignard4976 Any 2.5 drive should work including SSD
Any point in spending extra money for an SSD drive I wonder?
Since SSD prices have tanked, it might be worth it nowadays. I don't think you'll notice any real speed increase since the OS isn't stored on the drive though.
Do you have to do anything special to format the drive first? And is the OS on a chip internally, so it should just boot up clean?
>3TB, you don't have to do anything. The software is on the Tivo.
Um, isn't that supposed to be >3TB and you HAVE to do prep? 3TB or less and you don't need to prep? Your comment above says ">" (greater) 3TB. BTW, thanks for video. Much more involved than Roamio.
Wow you just kinda throw those drives around. There still mechanical with spinning disks. I'd be worried about damage
Close to 3 years up and running now. Not to mention, they weren't powered on...
I'm sorry for being critical. I've been building computers since 1985 (for myself) all I'm saying is if (which I'm not) would remind people that hard drives are u fragile . They do damage easily, I guess I was kind of taen back, also the reason I'm here at your video is I just. Bought a Bolt. I have 4 different Tivo boxes up to my last myTivo Romeio pro, 3 weeks ago a mild thunderstorm took that. Tivo out. Tivo.s especially their HDMI area. Hate static . Except the last one all the others had. The HDMI jack ruined by static electricity, I'd mention in your electronics videos. It's important to ground yourself . Again sorry . Just me. Thanks for the video. I'm hoping to try a 4tb drive, gonna as cut my cable card go Ota
whats the best 4k media player u recommend?
So you no longer have to prep the drive with linux? Just plug and play?
Correct, sort of. Plug in the drive and boot up to the setup screen. Tivo will automatically format. If it's larger than either 2TB or 3TB (I'm not sure which) then it will be formatted to 2TB (or 3TB), you then remove from the Tivo, connect to computer, and run mfsr to format to the full size (up to 8TB I believe). I just did it on my Bolt running the latest release (21.7 I believe), worked fine.
Did not know you could replace the existing HD with an off the shelf HD. Is this something new? I have the older box and getting pixelation on my video recording thinking my drive is dying.
Bolts have the OS stored on their own separate storage area. Other Tivo's will require additional prep work for new hard drives to work.
It's also possible that your power supply is dying. I started getting pixelation on my TiVO Series 3 HD when its power supply was dying. A good number of TiVOs were made during the so-called "Capacitor plague" (google it) and you can refurb the power supply by replacing the electrolytic capacitors, if you're handy with a soldering iron.
Thank you billd66 you leave me with more options. After removing the drive and replacing it with an identical drive the pixelation continues. Time to take a look at those Caps and the google search response. Again thank you.
@Rud Dog I'm not sure what model you have but I found a useful how-to on instructables.com for recapping the power supply on my S3 HD.
I have the Premiere. Will hop over to Instructables and see about fixes for my Tivos. Thanks.
can someone recommend a 2 terabyte hard drive Amazon?
+LoSo ʎɐʍ I have heard of people using this one:
Samsung Seagate 2TB Laptop HDD SATA III 2.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive 9.5MM (ST2000LM003)
But, do your own checking.
Will you be addressing the formatting of new drive installation in a subsequent video?
+Matthew Kent With a >3TB drive, you do not need to format or do anything special. You just pop it in and turn on the Tivo. 4TB and above needs some Linux love.
+Intellibeam What do you need to do in order to use 4TB and above?
+David Pavlakovich There is some Linux prep work that has to be done to the drive first.
Which electric screwdriver is he using?
Dewalt DCF610 12V
What was the point of a wavy case?
Under the arch is the cooling fan. It helps get airflow underneath the unit.
will this fit in a sony Playstation 4?